An Excerpt From Uncle Tom’s Cabin:

“All that they knew was, that [the Bible] spoke of a glory to be revealed, - a wondrous something yet to come, wherein their soul rejoiced, yet knew not why, and though it be not so in the physical, yet in moral science that which cannot be understood is not always profitless. For the soul awakens, a trembling stranger between two dim eternities, - she needs must yearn towards the unknown; and the voices and shadowy movings which come to her from out of the cloudy pillar of inspiration have each one echoes and answers in her own expecting nature. Its mystic imageries are so many talismans and gems inscribed with unknown hieroglyphics; she folds them in her bosom, and expects to read them when she passes beyond the veil.” (Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe)

Heh, I’ll admit I had to read this passage several times before it really hit home, especially the first sentence which is a bit verbose but is nonetheless one of the best in the paragraph. For that which “cannot be understood IS NOT always profitless.” She hit the nail smack on the head. So many times I’ve found myself getting frustrated with things I cannot understand in the Bible and consequently I begin to consider them as totally worthless for if I can’t understand it how does it benefit me, and yet Stowe is right. Even though I cannot understand everything that I read it is in no way profitless, for it does awaken in me the realization that there are things not of this world; things which are higher than myself. And as a result I AM left a “trembling stranger” caught between “two dim eternities,” heaven and earth. In a way it’s still quite annoying though that there is a veil which blinds us from understanding what I am convinced is all quite plainly written in God’s word. But that makes me look forward all the more to the day when I will reach heaven and the earthly veil will be lifted and I will be able to see and understand.